WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO MAINTAIN HEALTHY GUT FLORA?

Digestion of fibre occurs through fermentation by healthy (beneficial) bacteria within
the gut and this process provides the horse with an essential source of slow release energy.
In addition, maintaining high levels of healthy gut flora helps to keep those
pathogenic (bad) bacteria at bay keeping the microbial balance in equilibrium. An
imbalance in gut flora caused by too few beneficial bacteria and an overgrowth of
bad bacteria is known as dysbiosis.

Dysbiosis can cause inflammation of the gut leading to clinical problems such as
diarrhoea, colonic ulceration and poor body condition. In a large scale study the
incidence of colonic ulceration was found to be 44% in leisure horses, increasing to 63% in performance horses. 1